THE WEEK; Rare Tornado Snaps Trees and Power Lines

By AVI SALZMAN; Anahad O'Connor contributed reporting from Westchester for this article.

Published: July 16, 2006

A reported tornado took central Connecticut and Westchester County by surprise on Wednesday afternoon, appearing suddenly over the Hudson River and carving a narrow path of destruction through backcountry Greenwich and several towns in Westchester.

The tornado emerged over the Hudson shortly before 4 p.m. and quickly moved east, snapping and sheering trees along the way, knocking down trees, power lines and damaging cars. On Dwight Lane in Greenwich, the wind did so much damage that crews from Connecticut Light and Power worked Thursday to clear away 400 feet of downed trees to get to three broken poles and restore power, said Mitch Gross, a spokesman for the company. The storm knocked out power to about 1,700 customers.

No injuries were reported and no homes were damaged in Greenwich, said Lt. Daniel Allen, a spokesman for the Greenwich Police Department. The destruction was concentrated in the northwest corner of town, he said. One car was damaged by a tree, Lieutenant Allen said, and about a half-dozen roads were blocked Wednesday.

The last tornados to hit Connecticut were in June 2002, in Litchfield and New London Counties, according to Todd Miner, a meteorologist at Pennsylvania State University.

Westchester was hit harder. Buildings were damaged and four people were injured and taken to hospitals, but none were hurt seriously.

All along highways and roads in the towns that were hit, hundreds of downed trees created hurdles, and countless power lines littered the ground, in some cases in flames. Dozens of businesses were damaged.

''Some of these buildings are just wide open,'' said Louis Alagno, the police chief of Mount Pleasant, N.Y. ''There are so many walls gone that you can literally walk right into these buildings.''

State Extends Ban Of Sewage in Sound

For years, Connecticut has banned raw sewage from being dumped in Long Island Sound. Now, in a continuing effort to restore the health of the Sound, the state is extending its ban on treated sewage.

In an order announced on Wednesday, Gov. M. Jodi Rell said that boaters could no longer discharge treated sewage into the Sound from Guilford to Groton. This is the third section of the coastline where the state has banned treated sewage. It had already been banned from Groton to Stonington and then from Stonington to the Rhode Island border. The effort began in 2003.

The state has applied to the federal Environmental Protection Agency to designate all of Connecticut's coast as a ''no-discharge area,'' but is still awaiting a decision. State officials said they expected that the rest of the Sound would be protected from all sewage by next spring.

''Robert W. Varney, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency in New England, said the designation would result in ''substantial water quality improvements in the waters all along the Sound.''

To be approved for a ban on treated sewage in a particular area, the state must show it has enough pump-out stations where boaters can clear their sewage. The state already has dozens of such stations.

Dennis Schain, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection, said that while treated sewage was not as bad as raw sewage, it still damages the waters and removing it was important to the Sound's long-term health. Boaters caught dumping treated sewage will be subject to fines, he said.

Norwalk Keeps Airline But at a Different Site

Virgin Atlantic Airlines, which had been poised to move its North American headquarters to Stamford from Norwalk, changed course last week. Instead the company announced that it would move to another site in Norwalk.

The airline said in January that it planned to sign a lease for a building on Atlantic Street in Stamford. But delays in getting the development ready caused a change in plans, said Brooke Lawer, a spokeswoman for Virgin Atlantic. The company had hoped to move in the fall of this year, but might have to wait at least another year, she said.

''There were significant delays that we had not been expecting,'' Ms. Lawer said.

The company will receive incentives for remaining in Norwalk, including tax abatements and reduced parking fees, said Tad Diesel, director of marketing and business development for Norwalk.

Virgin Atlantic is moving out of its 60,000-square-foot Belden Street office because it is too large. The company transferred some jobs to England and had some workers telecommute from home last fall, reducing the number of employees in its Norwalk office to 85 from 185, Ms. Lawer said.

The new office, in a new development on Water Street near the train station in South Norwalk, is about 16,000 square feet, she said. The company announced it would sign a 15-year lease on the property, with plans to move in at the beginning of next year.

When they heard that Virgin Atlantic executives were considering other locations, Norwalk officials met with them and emphasized the economic benefits of staying in the city, Mayor Richard Moccia said.

''We try to put the best economic package together to keep people here,'' he said.

Michael W. Freimuth, the director of Stamford's Office of Economic Development, could not be reached for comment.

Photos: MOVING -- Virgin Atlantic is leaving its 60,000-square-foot office.; Knockout Workers repair damage among downed trees in Greenwich. (Photographs by Susan Farley for The New York Times)